Lehmann Maupin Seoul is pleased to present an exhibition of work by Chang Ucchin, Lee Ungno, and Suh Se Ok, three pivotal masters in modern Korean art who redefined the relationship between the individual and the collective through distinct yet intersecting visual languages. The exhibition title reflects a shared concern in their practices: while each artist approaches the human figure as a singular presence, their works extend beyond the individual to consider humanity as a whole. Working across ink and oil, figuration and abstraction, they treated the brush as a structural instrument, organizing line, mass, and interval into rhythmic compositions that articulate how figures gather, disperse, and inhabit shared space.
Emerging from different artistic formations and historical circumstances, each artist engaged tradition in distinct ways. Lee and Suh approach the legacy of East Asian ink painting and calligraphy as a foundational visual framework to be expanded, abstracted, and reoriented toward modern concerns. Meanwhile, Chang—working primarily in oil and intermittently in ink—did not explicitly align himself with a continuous literati lineage. Instead, his work distills visual form to an elemental clarity that parallels ink aesthetics without claiming its inheritance. In each case, tradition becomes neither static nor purely referential, but a flexible structure through which the conditions of modern life and shared existence are examined.
Lee Ungno’s practice traverses the embodiment of the sign and the signification of the body. As suggested by his early pen name “Juksa” (literally meaning ‘calligrapher for bamboo’), bamboo marks the point of departure for his artistic universe, gradually transforming into calligraphic script and, ultimately, into human figures. In his paintings, characters stand or dance like figures, capturing visual similarity between bodily movement and written language. In his 1970s Abstract Letter works, figuration fuses with gestural brushwork within a calligraphic structure. From 1979 onward, Lee concentrated on his celebrated Crowd series, in which figures traverse the picture plane to generate a collective rhythm. Repeated strokes and modulations of ink blur the boundaries between individuals while preserving the vitality of each gesture. Lee sought to expand the resonance of these works beyond political specificity and toward a universal language of shared breath and movement. A 1987 work from the Crowd series, produced during the final decade of his life, unfolds along a dynamic diagonal composition: interwoven figures expand across the canvas with powerful momentum. Repetitive brushstrokes soften individual contours yet animate each body, while tonal gradations of black ink weave the entire surface into a single, rhythmic expanse.
Chang Ucchin’s oil paintings present a lucid and simplified world in which recurring motifs such as sun and moon, figures, dogs, calves, trees, and houses all coexist on an egalitarian pictorial plane. His career is often divided according to the locations in which he lived and worked: Myeongnyun-dong, Deokso, Suanbo, and Yongin (Singal), each marking subtle shifts in style. In Tree (1984)—which was created during his Suanbo period, distinguished by heightened formal radicality—a solitary tree anchors the center of the canvas like a rotating earth, establishing pictorial order while evoking both cosmic and quotidian cycles. Within restrained forms, luminous color fields, and unadorned imagery, Tree is a distilled meditation on the essence of life.
Around 1977, Chang also devoted himself to ink paintings that articulated a different mode of modernity through the tension and transparency of single, decisive brushstrokes. While retaining traditional materials, these works enacted a conceptual shift. Referring to them modestly as “toying around with the brush” or even “brush fun,” Chang distanced himself from institutional categories. As shown in Two Men under the Tree (1982), his simplified forms and flattened compositions do not reiterate traditional landscapes or bird-and-flower painting; rather, through symbolic reduction, they probe the structural conditions of existence.
Sanjeong Suh Se Ok’s works inhabit the spirit of literati painting while expanding the horizon of ink abstraction. The formation of the Mukrimhoe (Ink Forest Society) in 1960 marked a crucial turning point for the artist, who joined as the group sought to root experimental ink painting in the legacy of literati tradition. Suh subsequently pursued the essential qualities of humanity and nature through restrained brushwork, repetition, and rhythmic composition. In his seminal People series, minimal lines coalesce into clusters of figures that connect and disperse. Swift strokes and the diffusion of ink into hanji paper reveal both performative gesture and material presence, reducing the relationship between individual and collective to an abstract structure. Figures become symbolic entities; within a system of repetition and variation, the dynamics of community and individuality emerge in distilled form.
Working contemporaneously, Lee linked ink painting to international discourses of abstraction, Suh expanded the expressive possibilities of the literati tradition, and Chang suspended rigid genre distinctions in favor of essential forms. Across these distinct trajectories, modern Korean painting reimagines the human figure not as motif but as structural principle—whether gathered in rhythmic crowds, distilled into clusters, or dispersed across pictorial fields where a singular presence quietly expands into its own cosmos.
About the Artists
Lee Ungno (b.1904, Hongseong, Chungcheongnam-do, South Korea; d.1989, Paris, France) is a master of modern art who began his practice in the tradition of Korean literati painting and later engaged deeply with Western abstraction. Living through a turbulent era marked by Japanese colonial rule, liberation, war, national division, and democratization, Lee continuously renewed his artistic language. Moving between East and West and eventually studying and living in Paris, he succeeded in articulating both Korean tradition and modernity within a single, evolving practice. Serving as a vital bridge between Korea and France, his oeuvre compellingly demonstrates how traditional media and visual languages can be rearticulated within the context of modern art.
Solo exhibitions of the artist were held in Gana Art Center, Seoul, South Korea (2024); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2017); Musée Cernuschi, Paris, France (2017); National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Deoksugung, Seoul, South Korea (2004). Selected group exhibitions include A Commemorative Exhibition for the 80th Anniversary of Liberation: Landscapes of Homeland and Longing, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Deoksugung, Seoul, South Korea (2025-2026); 120th anniversary of Lee Ung-no, Lee Ungno Museum, Daejeon, South Korea (2023); Creating Urgency: Modern and Contemporary Korean Art, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH, USA (2022); MMCA: Lee Kun-hee Collection: Masterpieces of Korean Art, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, South Korea (2021), among others. Lee received the Honorary Award at the Bienal de Sāo Paulo (1962) and the Grand Prize from the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris (1978). His works are held in the collections of Museum of Modern Art, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris; National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, South Korea; and Lee Ungno Museum in Daejeon, South Korea.
Chang Ucchin (b. 1917, Yeongi, Chungcheongnam-do, South Korea; d. 1990, Seoul, South Korea) is a key figure in modern Korean art. Chang’s paintings are mostly small in scale and center on familiar, everyday motifs such as trees, houses, birds, children, villages, and livestock. Among these, the house recurs as an especially significant motif, functioning as an emotional and symbolic locus within his work. The tension between structural condensation and formal restraint, coupled with a finely calibrated sense of balance, defines the distinct character of his practice. Depicting everyday surroundings, neighbors, and at times Buddhist themes, Chang distilled life to its essential forms. His pared-down imagery evokes a serene, timeless world in which the home becomes a spiritual refuge and humanity exists in gentle harmony with nature.
In 1964, Chang held his first solo exhibition at Bando Gallery. Subsequent solo exhibitions at Gallery SPACE (1974, 1981) and Kukje Gallery (1986) established his distinctive position in modern and contemporary Korean painting. Following his death, retrospectives were held at Hoam Museum of Art (1995), and Gallery Hyundai (2000). Most recently, The Most Honest Confession: Chang Ucchin Retrospective at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul (2023) reexamined the artist’s oeuvre. Currently, Seeping and Remaining: Chang Ucchin Ink Paintings is on view at the Chang Ucchin Museum of Art Yangju through April 5, 2026, after which a solo exhibition will open in April 2026 at Gangneung Art Museum Sorol. The Chang Ucchin Museum of Art in Yangju opened in 2014 and continues to preserve and present the artist’s legacy. His works are held in the collections of National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul; Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea; Chang Ucchin Museum of Art, Yangju, South Korea; and the Chang Ucchin Foundation for Art and Culture, Yongin, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea.
Suh Se Ok (b. 1929, Daegu, South Korea; d. 2020, Seoul, South Korea) received a BFA from the Oriental Painting department of Seoul National University in 1950. Within modern Korean ink painting, Suh sought to reconcile tradition with the urgencies of the postwar avant-garde. In 1960, he founded Mukrimhoe (“forest of ink”), the first postwar avant-garde ink painting group in Korea, aiming to challenge a stagnant art system and revitalize the medium through critical reinterpretation. Working on paper, he developed a distinctive calligraphic language that balanced disciplined brushwork with dynamic movement. From the 1960s onward, he was widely known for his People series, where sparse yet interconnected figures emerge in swift, rhythmic strokes. Rooted in literati tradition, Suh played a pivotal role in shaping Korean modernism.
Solo exhibitions of his work have been organized at Lehmann Maupin, Seoul, South Korea (2021) and New York, NY, USA (2018); Gallery Hyundai, Seoul, South Korea (2016); National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), Seoul, South Korea (2015, 2005); and Maison Hermès, Tokyo, Japan (2007), among others. Selected group exhibitions and international biennials include MMCA Collection: Korean Contemporary Art, MMCA, Seoul, South Korea (2025); Three Generations: Remembering Suh Se Ok (1929–2020), Lehmann Maupin, Seoul, South Korea (2022); MMCA Collection Highlight 2020+, MMCA, Seoul, South Korea (2020); be/longing, Lehmann Maupin, Hong Kong (2020); Beyond Line: The Art of Korean Writing, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA, USA (2019); Beyond and Between, Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea (2014); and the 7th São Paulo Biennial, São Paulo, Brazil (1963), among others. Suh was awarded the Silver Crown (2012) and Gold Crown (2021) of the Order of Cultural Merit by the South Korean government and was awarded the Seokjae Cultural Prize in 2022. His works are held in collections including the British Museum, London, United Kingdom; Fukuoka Art Museum, Fukuoka, Japan; Hoam Museum of Art, Yongin, South Korea; Ministry of Culture, Paris, France; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, USA; and the MMCA, South Korea.
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